{"id":78557,"date":"2013-05-29T08:15:15","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T12:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=78557"},"modified":"2015-10-21T13:04:21","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T17:04:21","slug":"remembering-two-giants-of-childrens-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/05\/remembering-two-giants-of-childrens-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Two Giants of Children’s Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the UConn Foundation’s Our Moment Newsletter (May-June 2013).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Celebrated<\/a>
Celebrated children’s authors Maurice Sendak and James Marshall were close friends. When Sendak died last year, he bequeathed his personal collection of works from Marshall to the UConn’s Northeast Children’s Literature Collection. (Suzanne Zack\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When he died in May 2012, acclaimed children\u2019s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak left behind a legacy that transformed his art form.<\/p>\n

He also left UConn a treasured gift: his personal collection of works from a fellow giant in the world of children\u2019s literature, James Marshall, best known for his 35 George and Martha books.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of pencil studies, paintings, drawings, and storyboards, along with dozens of books and other personal artifacts, were bequeathed to the Northeast Children\u2019s Literature Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center to create the Maurice Sendak Collection of James Marshall. The collection is valued at more than $400,000, but also carries priceless connections to the artists and their work.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A watercolor from the Maurice Sendak collection of James Marshall in the archives at the Dodd Center. Marshall, a resident of Mansfield Center, was best know for his George and Martha books. (Suzanne Zack\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere are some very special items in this collection,\u201d says curator Terri Goldich of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. \u201cMaurice Sendak had visited us several times, and knew that we had collections of his own work, as well as that of Marshall, who lived in Mansfield Center and often appeared in classes here at UConn. We are the repository for Marshall\u2019s own work, so this collection is a major addition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two legends were longtime friends. After Marshall\u2019s death in 1992, Sendak wrote the foreword to George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends<\/em> in 1997. The essay was adapted into a towering homage in The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Goldich says that because of the authors\u2019 close personal ties, two items have special significance to her: a completely original birthday book that Marshall wrote for Sendak, featuring a mix of new and well-known characters; and a small wooden box with some of Marshall\u2019s brushes, a pair of eyeglasses, and a \u201cvery touching\u201d note in Sendak\u2019s hand from the last time he saw Marshall alive.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The collection includes a wooden box with some of Marshall’s paintbrushes, a pair of eyeglasses, and a note in Sendak’s hand. (Suzanne Zack\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his Times<\/em> essay, Sendak called Marshall \u201cthe last of a long line of masters\u201d and \u201ca wicked angel.\u201d He praised his friend\u2019s respect for the art, his uncondescending approach to his audience of children, and his authenticity amid the changing business landscape of children\u2019s literature.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Marshall] lacked only one component in his constellation of gifts: he was uncommercial to a fault. No shticking, no nudging knowingly, no winking or pandering to the grown-ups at the expense of the kids,\u201d Sendak wrote, adding, \u201cThere was nothing he could do to impress the establishment; that was his triumph and his curse. Marshall did fulfill his genius, and its rarity and subtlety confounded the so-called critical world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of Sendak\u2019s philanthropic generosity and vision, that genius will be available for posterity to researchers, students, and lovers of the crafts of writing and illustrating.\u00a0For access to the Maurice Sendak Collection of James Marshall, please contact Goldich at terri.goldich@lib.uconn.edu<\/a> or call (860) 486-3646.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acclaimed children’s author Maurice Sendak bequeathed his personal collection of works by ‘George and Martha’ author James Marshall to the Dodd Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":78790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[53],"class_list":["post-78557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 05:28:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78557"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105356,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78557\/revisions\/105356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/78790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78557"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=78557"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=78557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}